Just Fooling Around by Julie Kenner & Kathleen O'Reilly

Author:Julie Kenner & Kathleen O'Reilly [Kenner, Julie & O'Reilly, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, General, Category, Adult, Man-Woman Relationships, Love Stories; American, April Fools' Day, Encounters, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780373795352
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

2

“OWWWW!”

That wasn’t a good sign.Devon cracked the door open again. “Did I hurt you?”

“Just the nose,” he muttered.

“Sorry,” she apologized, then added in the spirit of total deniability: “Please take a step back before it gets beat up again.” All legal waivers of liability completed, she slammed the door shut. If his nose got out of joint this time, it wasn’t her fault. He’d been warned.

Seemingly incapable of showing good sense, he knocked quietly.

“Ma’am?”

Her eyes closed, as if a lack of vision could block out the insidious persistence of that voice. This man wasn’t used to women who slammed doors on his nose. He wasn’t used to horrible miseries for one day of the year. No, he was that clueless individual who believed that all mountains should be climbed and all plumbing leaks could be fixed with a wrench and a roll of duct tape.

In other words, he was a man.

If only he wasn’t so…tempting.

After suffering from previous April Fools’ day hoaxes that required FBI interrogations (no she wasn’t a terrorist, and she didn’t know any Nigerian princes, nor had she ever claimed to be one) and accidents that required interior fumigation, it was somehow freeing to know that she wouldn’t mind spending twenty-four hours in bed, if Mr. Ball-and-Chain were there to keep her company.

Sensing her defenses starting to falter, Devon moved to the offensive. “Do not attempt to guilt me into opening the door against my better judgment, knowing that you’re an escaped criminal with a sordid past, recently on the run from a chain gang.”

“No chain gangs in North Dakota, ma’am. The penal system is a lot more humane than it used to be. No, this is just my buds pulling an April Fools’ joke on me.”

An April Fools’ joke? Seriously? For the first time on this godforsaken day, she found herself actually smiling. “You have very sick friends.”

“I know, I tell them that every day. You don’t know how many times I wanted to ditch the bastards, but then I tell myself, Self, you’ll get shot down behind enemy lines and captured, and if I went and kicked their ass—exactly like they deserved, mind you—then they’d have no reason to pull off one of those death-defying rescues you see in Hollywood and I’d never get famous. So you can see, I don’t have any choice in the matter. And that’s why I’m here at your doorstep with a ball and chain wrapped around my leg. It’s pitiful. It’s pathetic. But you’re my last hope. And I know you’re a very smart lady, and shouldn’t open the door, but goddamn it, it’s cold and wet out here, and the base is sixty-five kilometers away and I think if I was one hundred percent sober, I could probably make it, even with this monstrosity attached to me. But currently I’m sitting at about seventy-eight percent sobriety, and I think I’m coming down with a cold.” He sneezed, a genuine sound that breached the nuclear-bunkered walls of her heart.

All biological dictates aside, Devon knew there were a thousand reasons she shouldn’t open the door.

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